Comparative effects of gentle teaching and visual screening on self-injurious behaviour

Gentle teaching and visual screening procedures have been used to control severe behaviour problems in persons with mental retardation. An alternating treatments design was used to compare gentle teaching, visual screening and a task-training condition in the reduction of high levels of self-injury of an adult with profound mental retardation. Following baseline, a task-training condition using standard behavioural techniques was implemented to establish the effects of training the subject on age-appropriate tasks. Results showed a modest reduction in self-injury. This was followed by an alternating treatments phase in which visual screening, gentle teaching and no-treatment control conditions were compared. Both procedures were superior to the control condition in reducing self-injury, with visual screening being more effective than gentle teaching. When visual screening was implemented across two and then all three daily conditions, self-injury was further reduced to near-zero levels. Bonding occurred at the same low levels under both treatments, contrary to the predictions of gentle teaching's proponents.